By Todd Allen

What if they released Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler Movies, but nobody cared? That’s pretty much what happened this weekend. In what’s turning out to be a real Geek Chic summer, the top 10 this week was 4 SF/F films and a cartoon at #1.

Madagascar 3 stayed at the #1 slot with an estimated $35.5M, according to Box Office Mojo.  Figure there’s a good chance Brave will be the #1 cartoon next week, but Madagascar is making the most of it’s window of limited competition and has pocketed over $120M heading into the work week.

Prometheus, one of the most divisive films of recent memory, dropped 60% from last week for $20.2M.  That’s a bigger drop than you’d like to see from the first week.  The comparison people using the bad word of mouth argument are making is to Green Lantern, and it’s a mixed bag.  Green Lantern dropped 66% for week 2.  However, Prometheus dropped a very Green Lantern like 73% from opening Friday to the Friday of week 2.  Week 2, however, did not have both Saturday and Sunday grossing less than Friday.   Has there been bad word of mouth on Prometheus?  Oh, absolutely.  There’s also a contingent who love it.  Not much middle ground on this picture and that’s probably partially responsible for an excessive (but not unheard of) dip.  I do think there’s a possibility that week 1’s results were a little skewed by a high turnout of core fans on Friday.  At any rate, Prometheus is not quite at $89M and might break $100M by next week.

Snow White and Thor managed to beat out Adam Sandler’s That’s My Boy, for the #4 slot, but $13.8M didn’t beat Rock of Ages’ $15M.  It wasn’t that far away from being #3, though.  So the summer comedies laid an egg.

Men In Black 3 was #6 with $10M.  It’s domestic total is up to $152.6M.  You have to think Sony was expecting a little more, but Avengers seems to have sucked a lot of the air out of it.  Speaking of Avengers, it drew $8.8M in it’s 7th week.  Here’s where it gets interesting when you compare MiB3 and Avengers.  MiB3 is in it’s 4th week.  It’s per screen average was $3,190 at 3,135 screens.  It’s weekend total dropped 28%, which isn’t bad.  Avengers had a per screen average of $3,427 at 2,582 screens.  It’s weekend total dropped 21.3%.  Avengers and MiB3 seem to have been moving in tandem.  Their screen averages are similar, though Avengers is now higher per screen.  Their weekly revenue drops have been similar, though Avengers dropped a bit less.  MiB3 is just holding on to more screens right now.  Of course, Avengers is way ahead with $586.7M in domestic box office.

I suspect MiB 3 and Avengers both benefited from the public’s collective yawn at Rock of Ages and That’s My Boy.  Avengers shed another 547 seats, but is still getting a respectable screen average.  The question remains how long it can hold on to screens.

Next week sees two big debuts: Brave from Disney/Pixar gets 4000 screens and will take a bite out of Madagascar 3.  Speaking of taking a bite, the heavily advertised Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter joins that SF/F rotation with 3,000 seats.  We’ll see what it’s arrival does to the Avengers/MiB3/Snow White and Thor/Prometheus mix.

After that, SF/F takes a week off and Spidey arrives on July 3rd.

I can understand why the GI Joe sequel was pulled and rescheduled.  While not completely in SF/F land, it certainly would be competing in a crowded landscape and Battleship appears to have been pushed out (#11/ $1.2M and a meager $62M domestic).  With Spidey and Batman looming in the near future, things aren’t going to get less crowded.  The question is how much room there is for non-genre in the next couple weeks?

1 COMMENT

  1. Prometheus didn’t tumble; it took an expected 59% drop. Sci-fi films are always front loaded and R rated sci-fi films don’t do very well over time. It’s cool if you didn’t like it, but there’s no need to exaggerate its decline in business.

  4. So is this the first week for the Cruise and Sandler films?? Cause that is just…. bad!

    I’ll see Prometheus and Snow White on DVD.

    And I’m gonna be getting gold class seats for both Spiderman and Batman!! Cant wait for both!!!:)

    I might have to see what else is upcoming – cause off the top of my head, I cant think of anything else I’d go to the cinema for…

  5. MiB3 was a huge disappointment, especially after the word-of-mouth that it was going to be more in line with the original film.

    I haven’t see a film in recent memory where the performances, especially Will Smith’s, were more phoned-in. The story wasn’t bad, but what sucked the air out of it was a distinct lack of enthusiasm by the cast. Directorially speaking, the pacing seemed a bit off, too, not giving the humor the room to breathe and the audience a chance to really react to it before moving rapid-fire to the next set-up and punchline. Definitely had a “thanks for coming, but let’s get this over with” vibe.

    Easy to see why Sony bet more heavily on Spider-Man.

  6. I loved Snow White and for the visuals (sets, costumes, effects) it really should be seen on a big screen to be fully enjoyed. But, really, I loved all of it, but that could be because it was like walking around in one of my drawings.The Dark wood was to kill for! For me, Prometheus left a bitter taste in my mouth of many wasted opportunities. MiB was okay, but there were none of the surprises of the first and the humor seemed a bit stale. I did want to see more of the character that could see ALL possible futures though. Looking forward to Brave very much!!.

  7. I’m still enjoying Prometheus. I’ve now gone into some websites that posit theories on what happened in the movie, and it’s made my appreciation that much greater. For example, (SPOILER) why did Charlize Theron have a medical bed in her chamber if it was only set to heal male patients? Because she was likely an android as well and it was only set up for her ‘father’. Stuff like that makes me want to see it again and again. I think those who enjoyed the AvP movies (which sucked, IMO) wouldn’t like the more measured approach of Prometheus. It was good sci-fi, where the enjoyment comes from the ideas, not the action.

  8. Prometheus had all the scripting faults of LOST in that the characters spent all their time emoting and fighting and any dialog that actually dealt with their situation was forbidden.

  9. while its ‘cute’ to refer to SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN as ‘SNOW WHITE AND THOR’, its kind of confusing/annoying to use a pet name for an analysis like this

  10. I also loved Prometheus, but it’s all cool. If we all enjoyed the exact same stuff for the same reasons, no one would ever do anything different.

    Moonrise Kingdom, however, is the movie of the year. Unbelievably beautiful! It should be a must see for everyone!

  12. I absolutely loved Prometheus, but it does have a major fault in that the motive of the bad guy is unknown. I want to see this movie again more than any other movie coming out (until Batman).

  13. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, and I found things to enjoy in Prometheus. However, It is a terribly flawed film as far as story and character. Having said that, I hope it is a financial failure that will show studios they need to make complete films, not 2hr20min commercials for sequels.

  15. Nearly $300M at the box office & still going. The most successful in the Alien franchise. & don’t give me all that adjusted dollars rubbish. You can’t compare movies released at other time periods. Films only do well in the time they are made. So to recap… Your wrong.